A piece today from Australian stock broker CommSec
(Chief Economist Craig James)
In brief:
- The latest economic data raises even more questions about the 'funk' happening on financial markets, in particular the Australian sharemarket
- Consumers are seemingly happy with life while new home sales lifted sharply in the latest month
(I posted these better results earlier:
- Australia - Westpac Consumer Confidence (February): +4.2% m/m (prior -3.5%)
- Australia - HIA New Home Sales for December: +6.0% m/m (prior -2.7%)
- I also posted: Australia - lets do a bit of contrarian thinking (this might disappoint you)
net result ... tumbleweeds)
More interestingly, for me anyway, was something else I saw earlier, again via CommSec:
It was from a presentation by a CBA analyst, saying that:
- 78% of home loan customers are ahead in repayments
- By 29 months on average (includes offset facilities)
That's from just one bank of course, the CBA. Which happens to be Australia's largest home loan lender.
For those looking for a housing-price-collapse-led-Australian-recession, it looks like you might have to wait a little longer. Still, the Aussie doomers have been calling recession for the past quarter of a century to no avail, what's another few years/decades?